MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 2650, 28 December 1904, Page 62

MULTUM IN PARVO

— The! marriage of an elderly couple has taken place near Boston, Lincolnshire, the combined! ages of the contracting parties amounting to 154 years. Misp Scott, the bride, was on the verge of 80 year&, and the bridegroom, Mr Virgin, was 75. — What is claimed to be one of the largest clocks in the world has been placed in a, new tower at Elizabeth, New Jersey. It is 38ft In diameter, with 18ft' hands. The tower, which is 330 ft high, was built expressly for the* 'clock, which will he illuminated at night, and 1 will he visible for many miles round. —It i 9 not every father who can see four of his' children married on the same day, so no one need' feel surprised if M. Girard', a farmer of the village of Huguetiere, in the Vendee, pn such an event occurring- iti hi? own family, determined' to celebrate it in style. On th© day of the weddings Huguetiere gave itself up to Tejoicing, as did numerous guests from the surrounding countryside, who had) assembled to see the foul* ooupies and the imposing procession which accompanied them. At midday a banquet was heldi, at which more than 400 guests sat down. — The French army appear* to be on the eve of an important advance in field: gunnery. The new powqer effectually does away with the smote which formerly 7 betrayed! the presence of a battery, but there am remains the flash, which rises to a height of 13ft from the mouth of the gun. Major Froissart, o! "the 27th Artillery, has perfected 1 an apparatus fpr obviating this disadvantage, and thereby rendering a battery invisible, — During some firing experiments by the Swedish Government the bullets failed to penetrate targets made of pasteboard 3in in thickness, yet tjjey easily passed through frteate sia thick ' ***-

— The most sanguinary of modern battles was probably that of Moskowa in 1812, when of the 130,000 French 30,000 were lost, and of the 140,000 Russians 60,000. — The best-paid clergy in Siberia get about £120 a year, while the poorer ones have often to beg for their bread. All priests must fast 226 days m the year, and; monastic priests are enjoined never to eat meat. — The Tramwaya Committee of the Douglas Town Council has entered into an arrangement with the education authority of the borough, under which children attending the town elementary schools will be allowed to travel to mid from school by corporation trait way coupons, which will be sold to the education authority by the committee at 3d per dozen, or id each, and these will be issued to children residing at a distance from the school attended. They will only be available for use between the hoxirs of 8 and 9 in the morning, 12 to 2, and 4- and 5 in the afternoon. — Messrs Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. have built a small train, specially for a millionaire, to take round decanters and cigars after dinner. -The little engine, over which two dolls in blue overalls preside, is constructed of silver-plated' copper in miniature reproduction of a Great Western locomotive. The tender is stacked with coals from the millionaire's own Goal mine. When the millionaire touches a button the train -starts. It runs quite slowly round th© track, and when a guest picks up a decanter the current is broken, and the- train stops till he replaces it. Ths total length of the train, which is driven by electricity, is over sft, and the track is constructed for a 20ft table. — Readers' of the war news may have noticed one or two references to the fact that tinned meats for the Russian troops are prepared by a process which enables the contents of each tin to be served hot without a fire. This boon is secured by having the ordinary tins filled with food "'jacketed" in patent tins. The patent tin contains water, together with a chemical mixture by means of which the water can he raised to the boiling point in 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour. All that is necessary to do when it is desired to heat the food is to puncture the top of the patent tin, the chemical mixture being thereby forced into the water, which coon begins to boil. — The small town of Werda, in Dahomey, is celebrated for its temple of serpents, a long building in which the priests keep upwards of 1000 serpents of all sizes, which they feed with birds and frogs brought to them as offerings by the natives. — Bohemia is the country of long courtships. In no other part of the world are they so abnormally drawn out. It is not rare to hear of engagements which have extended from 15 to 20 years. An old man died recently in Prague at the age of 99, whj had 'been eorirting a sweetheart for 62 years. — Under the Belgian law unmarried men over 25 have one vote, married men and widowers with families have two votes, and priests and other parsons of position and education have three votes. Severe penalties are- imposed on those who fail to vote. —In France there are 6,000,000 smokers, and of every 15 there are eight who smoke " a pipe, five who smoke cigars, and only; two who use cigarettes. Still, they use more than 8,000,000 cigarettes a year, or enough to go around the -world 500 times if they are placed' end to end. — In Germany and Austria the soldier has a simple, straw bed with one or two covers, neither sheet nor mattress. In Russia until recently he slept with his clothes on, on a camp bed, but now ordinary beds begin to be used — Ih© i-esult of association with more civilised! countries. After this it cannot be doubted that the French soldier's bed is the best of all, with its wooden or iron bedstead, a straw bed, a wool mattress, sheets, a brown woollen^ coverlet, and an extra quilt for cold weather. Thus the bed of the French soldier is the softest of all soldiers' beds, as that of the French peasant is acknowledged also to be the beet of all European countries. " — Thirty men have 'accomplished in Pittsburg the feat of moving a weight of 4,992,0001b a distance of 22ft. They have lifted the Grand Opera House of tlie city off its foundation, moved it forward 22ft, and planted it on a new base. It required! less than 36 hours to accomplish the job-, and: one could ftot ccc the structure< moving. In this colossal building is the largest; theatre in Pittsburg, the largest billiard and pool room in the United States, a bowling alley, a barber's shop, and various other establishments, yet the whole massive fabric has been transplanted without accident, without jar, and without even the slightest injury to any part of it. —In the State of Durango. llexico, is a great mountain, 2000 ft high, which is saidl to be the most remarkable mountain in the world. It is almost solid iron, and is a-fc the base three-quarters of a mile in thickness. This iron mountain has for some years been the envy of iron manufacturers, who have wanted) to get a lease of it, and so work it; hut the Government has steadily refused* to alloAv this to be done until recently, when a contract was entered into between the Government and some New York capitalists for the operation and development of it upon a partnership basis. The ore obtained from this mountain is said to yield 1 about 87 per cent, pure iron. — The British Empire occupies about onefifth of the surface of the habitable globe, and consists of the United Kingdom, . with' its attendant islands, and about 43 dependencies under separate and independent! Governments, varying in size from Canada, which is 30 times the size of the United to Gibraltar, the area of which Is two square miles. Thus? the area of the British Empire 98 times that of the United Kingdom, -while the area of the) self-governing colonies alone is nearly 60 times as large as that of the Mothec Country. — A singular feat m the forgery of banfc notes has just been accomplished in Copenhagen. With no apparatus better than a Small lithographic press and one or twe* most imperfect and primitive tools, a lithoj grapbex hacti succeeded ;n. producing 10,00(1 notes of 10 kroner each so perfect thas only etupidity in circulating- them prevented!. st great success. The police refused* to hen lieve- that notes so perfect had! been produced with means so inadequate, but th« lithographer, with artistio pride, asked! foj^ his press, and, going to work in hla oel$ r ' soon demonstrated that it was possible t<i" be at once a knave and a fin© artist. Ana now in .Copenhagen the strange spectacle is witnessed of forged 10-kroner bank notesworth nothing as money, selling irseif among connoisseurs for 30 kroner, ac bsgs£>